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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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Hollinger Corp. 
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THE 



ISSION AND PROBLE 



OF 



AIV ABDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



SOCIE 



OF 



Jiihe 28th, 1848. 



BY J. m NOUtt'SE, Esq., 

O/" Bardstown, Ky, 



DANVIELE a KY: 

Zimmerman & Barbee, Prs.-=TRiBUNE Office; 






IJEA* Si*:— 

We, the undersigned, have been appointed a committee, to request for pub- 
lication, a copy of your very excellent address, delivered before the literary so- 
cieties of Centre College, on the evening of June 28th, 1848. It is requested, iw 
the belief, that a paper of so high a literary tone, replete with so many interesting 
iruths, so originally presented, would be read with interest and avidity by all those 
who appreciate literary merit, and that it would have a beneficial influence upon 
society at large. Respectfully, 

LAFAYETTE JONES, 
GILON H. ROUT, 
ALEX. SNEED, 
T. SWOPE, 
G. B. FLEECE, 
A. L. WALLAS, 
J. D. Nourse, Esq. Committee. 



Gentlemen: I have received your note, requesting a copy of the address, which 1 
had the honor to deliver before the societies which you represent. Deeply sensible of 
I he flattering estimate, you have placed upon my effort, I herewith furnish you with' 
a copy, as requested. Yours, Respectfully, 

J. D, NOURSE 
Messrs, Jones, and others, Committee; 







Gentlemen of the Deinologian and Chamberlain Societies: — 

A short time before I received notice of the honor which you had 
conferred upon me, I accepted an invitation to address a literary socie* 
ty in another institution, It was my wish and purpose to devote several 
months to the completion of a literary undertaking, which I had been 
encouraged to prosecute by favorable notices of some essays that I had 
published on the philosophy of social progress. That enterprise I have 
found myself under the necessity of postponing indefinitely. It occur- 
red to me that a part of the speculations, of which I had sketched the 
outline, by making some changes in style and arrangement, might be 
easily divided and compressed into two discourses, each of which would 
be perfectly appropriate to the anniversary of a literary association. — 
The two subjects are so connected that a brief summary of the former 
discourse will form a suitable introduction to the remarks which I shall 
offer for your consideration. 

In the address alluded to, I endeavored to show that the popular lite- 
rature of an age, embodies with peculiar intensity and comprehensive- 
ness the prevailing spirit and profoundest tendencies of society, and 
may, therefore, be regarded as marking the stage, and manifesting the 
phenomena of social progress quite as clearly as those public transac- 
tions which find a place in history. Genius affords a common medium 
of sympathy between the earnest and thoughtful. The crude and timid 
processes of many minds run together and start up into definite shape, 
harmonious completeness, and active concurrence, when the proper 
chords are struck by the master-hand of him who combines deep feeling 
and wide sympathies with daring and capacious intellect; who can vi- 
tally connect the thought of his own age and country with the thought 
of all ages and countries, by discerning with more or less clearness, in 
all that is peculiar, and transitory, some element of the universal and 
perenninal. The confluent tide of thought and feeling in turn bears 
along with it, not only the mind which set it in motion, but others per* 



4 

tiaps equally powerful, which may add to its depth and volume, or cause 
it to deposit more or less of the sediment of error, but cannot change its 
general direction, before it is finally dispersed in the ocean of mind, 
Combining and comparing the indications of action and literature, I 
characterized the age just gone by as eminently one of revolt, scepticism 
and destruction. The tremendous reaction of the human mind against 
an accumulation of abuses and superstitions, carried it to the opposite 
extreme, and shook the foundations of all belief and reverence. Rev- 
olutionary ardor burried, under the ruins of ancient institutions, much 
of the truth and good, which have found in them a shelter and dwells 
ing place for many generations. The spirit of the present age, I remark- 
ed, is in part a reaction against that of the last, and partly a prolongation 
of the same movement. The work of pulling down, has lately been 
resumed with more vigor than ever; but in a better spirit and under 
happier auspices, for men are more disposed to recognise what was 
good in the past, and to find, not in dreams of their own, but in what 
survives the ruin of the old, the deep foundations and enduring materi- 
als of the new social edifice. Our own country, with its free press, its 
tolerant Christianity, and its glorious inheritance of Anglo-Norman 
liberty, is in a peculiar sense a grand link of vital connection between 
the past and the future. While France is attempting to form a Federal 
Republic, and Germany is reconstructing her ancient freedom, with such 
modifications as are demanded by the progress of society, and Italy is 
stirri ng beneath the feet of her crowned, and coronetted,and mitred ty- 
rants, and England is perhaps preparing to throw off those anomalies 
whieh still incrust and disfigure her constitution; our own couniry, the 
mightiest and clearest embodiment of the tendencies of modern society, 
is moving, a pillar of cloud and of fire, in the van of the christian 
civilization. At this point I was arrested by entering the limits of the 
subject which I had reserved for the present occasion; the mission and 
problems of American Society; in other words, the duties of American 
mind arising from the relations which now subsist, and are likely to sub- 
sist hereafter, between this republic and the general progress of freedom, 
knowledge and civilization. There are two leading ideas, without 
which human affairs are little better than a pathless waste of crime, im- 
posture, decay and ruin, and history a record of changes devoid of pur- 
pose and significance. These ideas are Progress and Providence. — 
Without them we must look upon the mass of mankind, in all ages, as a 
host of pilgrims, toiling on through a scorching Sahara, never allowed 
to rest at the isles of verdure which dot the dreary landscape, but lured 



,©n by the delusive mirage, to be finally stifled by the simoon, and bu- 
ried under the drifting sands of the desert. These ideas are so connec- 
ted, that the one cannot exist without the other, for progress is the only 
conceivable object of superinducing a Providential economy upon the 
natural and moral government of the world, and Providence is the only 
guarantee ol progressive and .durable improvement. We may, with 
propriety, for the sake of still greater simplicity, consider the idea of 
progress, as included in the one great illuminating idea of a beneficent 
Providence. 

I cling to this idea because hope is a better counsellor than despair. 
It is not a mere barren speculation. It may support him who falls upon 
"evil days and evil tongues," with an assurance of the ultimate triumph 
,of truth and justice, and strengthen him for the work to which he is 
called by natural gifts and circumstances. It may become to the pa- 
triot or reformer a star of hope,going before him through the darkest hour 
of peril and disaster, to guide his unfaltering footsteps to the birth-place 
of freedom and the cradle of redemption. This world is a great battle 
ground, and in the mighty conflict with ignorance, falsehood, and injus- 
tice, each of us, from the general of division, to the soldier in the ranks, 
will fight better, if we believe that the whole field is under the eye of 
One, whose wisdom and resources give us an assurance of final victory 
over the Devil and his legions. This idea only becomes mischievous, 
when from a rational confidence in a higher Wisdom, Power and Love, 
bringing good out of evil, it is perverted into some presumptious notion 
of "manifest destiny," which may serve as a pretext and disguise for 
rapacity and ambition. Justly applied, it will help to "dilate our con- 
ceptions with the kindling majesty" of the mission of this republic, and 
the duties of those who, in any capacity, take the lead of American So- 
ciety. A confident hope, under the guidance of Providence, of ulti- 
mate triumph over the social evils that afflict humanity, should not cause 
us to forget the probable perils and vicissitudes of the conflict, and the 
share which each of us may have in retarding or accelerating the glori- 
ous consummation. The assurance of victory, with which the heroes 
of Buena Vista met the shock of the enemy, qljd not cause any one of 
them to drop his weapons, and remain an idle spectator of the combat. 

While, as I trust I shall be able to show, there are good grounds for 
hope in the Providential indications which may be fouud in the history 
,of our country, the only thing which stands out with perfect clearness 
in the light thrown upon the future by the past and the present, js a 
^ast influence to be exerted by this nation over human affairs, a mighty 



destiny tob^evolvect in glory or in shame, or both, through a succession 
of moral triumphs, or vicissitudes of crime, disaster, and misery. 

Of the Providential indications of a glorious mission for American 
Society, one of the most striking is the peculiar juncture at which the 
English colonies were planted on this continent. A leading fact of 
modern history, is the struggle of liberty -against arbitrary power, which 
first took the attitude of open and decided hostility in England, during 
the earlier part of the seventeenth century. Of the sudden and rapid 
growth which then took place, in the light and warmth of a free Christi- 
anity, of those germs of liberty which had for ages been lurking in the 
English constitution and English Society, a hardy offshoot was planted 
in the virgin soil of America. Assailed by the rudest blasts, and ex- 
posed in its infancy to all the vicissitudes of an inhospitable wilderness, 
it has sent out its roots wide and deep, and climbed through the region 
of the storm, until* "its top is now in the heavens and its shadow over a, 
eontinent," 

When the eagle ot Rome was folding his 'wings to die and be en-, 
tombled in the ruins of the ancient world, it was little thought that from 
his remains, and the wreck made by his destroyers, was to spring up,, 
under the reviving breath of Christianity, a more expansive, diversified,, 
and enduring civilization. Modern history is the record of this stupen- 
dous resurrection, of which the most striking fact is the gradual evolu-. 
tion of that true liberty, which was unknown even in the republican, 
states of antiquity. The main stem of this progress is found in that 
tribe of ftee Saxons who at an early period, were drawn away from their 
native forests to an inland in the Atlantic, where, cut off by the sea,, 
from causes that proved fatal to liberty on the continent, they received 
the political education of a thousand years. 

While the germs of modern improvement were advancing towardsmatu- 
rity in the old world,the wide field for their expansion in the new lay under 
the darkness which, until the appointed time, was permitted to rest upon 
the western ocean. On the evening of the day in which the barons 
extorted from King John the great charter of English liberty, no one t 
who, from the western cliff, of the "fast anchored isle,-" saw the sun 
sink behind the crest of the Atlantic wave, could have dreamed that 
he was pursuing his radiant journey over mighty regions, where solitude 
reigned in the recesses of primeval forests, and over vast lakes and riv- 
ers, one day to be plowed by the steamboat, but which at that time, 
while the winds were asleep in their caves, were unruffled save by the 

wild fowl or the spectre bark of the Indian hunter, as it glided across, 
the flashing surface. 



But the time fixed for lifting the curtain from the secrets of thei 
western deep at length arrived. Soon after the voyages of Columbus, 
and while the adventurers who followed him were revealing to startled 
Europe the vast extent of his discovery, the hammer with which Luther 
nailed his theses to the church door, in a little saxon city, was sounding 
on the clock of eternity the knell of an old era, and announcing the 
birth of a great moral revolution; The effects of the reformation upon 
civil liberty were modified in each country by local circumstances, but 
they may be fairly tested by contrasting Great Britain, in which Protest- 
ant dissent was most prevalent, with Spain, from which it was most care- 
fully excluded. In the early part of the seventeenth century these two 
countries represented respectively the two great antagonisms of mod- 
ern Society. Spain was the peculiar stronghold of civil and spiritual 
despotism. In all parts of Europe eclesiastical authority sought to 
strengthen itself against the new tendencies of society, by allying itself 
with the secular power. In Spain, from causes which I cannot now 
dwell upon, this alliance was singularly close, and the success of the 1 
clergy in suppressing freedom of thought was remarkably speedy and 
complete. They had sought of course the strongest part of the civif 
government, which happened to be the executive, for Spain was the' 
greatest military power on earth,. and the King was the chief of the 1 
army. By the union of monarchical, military and eclesiastical powers, 
the free Gothic Constitutions were overthrown. The representative as- 
semblies lost all real power, and merely registered the edicts of a suc- 
cession of gloomy tyrants, who, in the recesses of the Escurial, moved 
the springs of that iron despotism which had laid its fatal grasp upon the 
southern portions of America. The last sparks of free thought were 
quenched in blood. The literary glories of the country of Cervantes 
and Calderon sunk and expired in that midnight of the human in- 
tellect which still broods over Spain and most of her former depend- 
encies. 

Of those dependencies, Mexico was the most wealthy and populous, 
and that ill fated country still shows the effects of the connection. It 
is much easier to shake off political dependenee than the vassalage of 
manners, habits and institutions. In Spain and Mexico, all freedom of 
thought is suppressed by Clerical intolerance. In both, the mass, of 
the people are sunk in apathy, ignorance and superstition. Both pre- 
sent the same deplorable spectacle of external weakness and internal 
disorganization. 

Meanwhile, in England, civil right and religious liberty, united for mu= 



§ 

tual support, and gradually gained strength enough for a great struggLe 
with arbitrary power and eclesiastical despotism. Had the English Col- 
onies been planted at the same time that the Spaniards conquered Mex- 
ico, American Society would probably have been an image of the Eng- 
land of Henry the Seventh and Eighth, when the free principles of the 
English constitution were a dead letter, when Parliament and the courts 
of justice were the pliant tools of arbitrary power, and the church was 
in quiet possession of the human mind. But the settlement of Anglo- 
America was happily postponed till the heroic age of the' mother country. 

'The fact, wnich first waked up the spirit of inquiry, and infused new 
life into the liberal portion of the English constitution, Was the anoma- 
lous position of the new spiritual despotism founded by Henry the 
Eighth, and consolidated by his imperious daughter. Destitute of the 
prestige and venerable associations of the ancient church, the new estab- 
lishment was compelled to combat the Catholics with arguments that 
sapped the foundations of her own authority, while those which she 
employed against dissenters affected their persons and property, but left 
their minds untouched, except to rouse them to determined resistance. 

The next fact, was the union of the two British crowns in the house 
of Stuart, which brought the republican Calvinism of Scotland into closer 
connection and warmer sympathy with the various forms of dissent, 
which in England were gaining ground, and about to unite against the 
common enemy. 

The third fact, resulting from the two former, was the alliance of re- 
ligious freedom wiih civil liberty. This union was natural in itself, or* 
account of the affinities between them, but was greatly promoted by the 
circumstance, that resistance to a spiritual despotism, founded as well 
as supported by the state, readily suggested inquiry, into the abuses of 
the civil administration which had, while upholding the church in her 
intolerable tyranny, departed very widely from the noblest principles of 
the English constitution. 

Such was the juncture at which the Ernglish colonies were planted on 
this continent. Almost the next gale, after that which had wafted the 
bark of the Pilgrims across the Atlantic, brought to the ears of the set- 
tlers the first thunders of that great conflict between liberty and power, 
which, to quote my own words in another place, has been the leading 
historical fact of the last two centuries, and has sent pale Fear into the 
palaces of Kings, through triple guards and crowded antechambers, to"' 
write on the innermost wall the doom of tyrants. 

Thus America was the first-born of freedom, a hardy offset from the 









9 

rapfcf and vigorous growth of free principles in the mother country. Its 
childhood and youth were worthy of its birth from the first throes of a 
great revolution. The colonist had to subdue the wilderness, defend 
himself against the savage, and maintain the contest for freedom, which 
was once more prostrate in' Engl and. There was still, however, much 
in common between the colonies and the mother country. There were 
the same free laws, the same notions of right, the same spirit of inquiry 
on both sides of the Atlantic. But happily, the new world was an ,un- 
genial soil for those old feudal and ecclesiastical institutions, which in 
Europe have retarded the progress of liberty. 

I will not detain you by she-wing how the colonies, planted at differ- 
ent times and varying in local circumstances, bound together as parts 
of one empire, yet separate and distinct so far as regarded their internal 
and domestic concerns, which, in some of them at least, were regulated 
by legislative assemblies, similar in constitution and privileges to the 
popular branch' of the British" Parliament, became the germs of our fed- 
eral republic. I will content myself with the general remark, that no 
social organization can live, which does not grow up naturally from the 
circumstances of each society; which is not vitally connected with for- 
mer modes of thought and habits of the people, or engrafted upon the 
stocks of old institutions. The attempts of radicals to substitute their 
own dreams and systems for the natural and progressive development 
of society, are, of all hopeless enterprises, the most utterly chimerical 
If any country in ihis age of revolutions, instead of setting herself to 
Reconstruct upon the old foundations, or according to a model approved 
by time and experience, with' such modifications as may be required by 
her own particular stage of social progress, shall abandon herself to so- 
cialists, and systenvmongers, she must perish in art anarchy of crotchets 
worse confounded than the elemental strife of chaos. For when men 
abandon entirely the common ground of prescription, none of the vis- 
ionaries can see why his own little theory of society should yield to any 
other, and all will be found equally wanting, when confronted with the 
Infinite complexities of the actual world. 

To this remark:, our own country is no exception, though in regard 1 to 
its origin, it is unlike every other that has played a verj important part 
In human affairs. The beginning of our national existence is not envel- 
oped in the obscurity of fabulous ages, and for the first time the clear 
light of authentic history shines on the cradle of a great nation. Yet it 
ban be|easily sho'wn,that our true life, as a people,is but the expansion of 
germs which had forages existed in European society before they were 



to 

l^fehsplanted to America. We may trace the vital roots of out Social 
organism in the forests of Germany, the mystic groves of Etruria, 
from which issued the Roman power, the pine-crested steeps that grow 
over "Delphi's long deserted shrine," the rushy banks of the Nile, and 
the clefts of Horeb, where from the burning bush, the Legislator of the 
Hebrews first heard the voice of the Eternab The fate of all social 
systems, by which men have attempted to interrupt that great law of 
progressive development, which vitally links all ages and generations, 
ought to abate the confidence of those sceptics and radicals, who flatter 
themselves that the movements of this age are making a clear field for 
their own chimeras. 

The social system of America is the confluence of many streams of 
moral and intellectual life, rising in distant ages and climes, and filtered, 
if I may be allowed the expression, by passing the Atlantic, like that 
river which in Grecian table was represented as lost to view, and pass- 
ing through sea and land, until it once more burst into light as the 
chrystal fount of Arethusa. The growth of our country has been 
worthy of the convergence of such vast Providential arrangements. 
The stream of life has rolled on with ever increasing volume and pow- 
«r, as if instinct with a resistless destiny, through the forests and over 
the prairies, reached the defiles of the Rocky Mountains, and circling 
the feet of these snow-crowned monarchs of the western .wilderness* is 
even now waking the echoes of the rock-bound shores of the South sea. 
The westward extension of our race and social system have brought 
them into collision with those of Spanish America, and an unbroken 
series of miraculous victories has planted the American standard on 
the towers of the Mexican capital. Imagination herself closes her eyes 
and folds her wings in trembling awe before the probable future of this 
mighty republic, spreading from ocean to ocean; on one side throwing 
back upon Europe the shadow of her greatness and the moral power of 
her institutions; on the other, confronting with a spectacle of moral life 
and free activity, the embalmed remains of the oriental civilization. 

I need not tell you of the eagerness, with Which the inventions of 
science have been seized upon, or the vast scale upon which they have 
been applied to the increase of commercial facilities, the rapid transit of 
intelligence, and the promotion of the material prosperity of our coun- 
try. It is true, that in all this, she only partakes of the general charac- 
teristics of an age, which has harnessed the fire-horse to the car of com- 
merce, pencils likenesses with the sunbeam, and makes the lightning a 
fiews carrier. But she partakes of them more largely than any other 



11 

country, for no where else have the conquests of man over nature 
been so rapid and extensive, Witness the rapidity with which a web 
of telegraphs has been spread over the land, forming the nervous sys- 
tem of a body, of which our great rivers have been made the arteries, 
and our railways the ligaments. Our progress in all the arts that min- 
ister to the physical well being of man, has fully kept pace with the mar- 
vellous growth and extension of our population. For intellectual col- 
ture,our provision exceeds in quantity, if not in quality, any ever known 
before or elsewhere on earth. The actual amount of wholesome truth 
held in solution by the inundation of ephemeral literature; in other 
words, the proportion which the culture of the moral and higher men- 
tal faculties, bears to the intellectual activity which ministers to mate- 
rial interests, or mere amusement, involves one of the great problems 
of American Society. 

The fact which stands out in bold relief, from all our speculations on 
the future destinies of this country, is a stupendous power for good or 
evil, in & state of extraordinary activity. It is folly to think of arrest- 
ing the progressive tendency, which is extending our population, and 
developing our resources of physical greatness with such marvellous 
rapidity. We might as well try to dam the Mississippi. But we may 
raise moral "levees," and make new outlets, or rather, widen and deep- 
en some of the old ones, so that the fertile wilderness, which the swell- 
ing waters could otherwise devastate, or cause to teem with a rank and 
unwholesome vegetation, may become a garden of moral and intellec- 
tual beauty. 

I will ask your attention to some facts, in the present state of Amer- 
ican Society, which cannot fail to suggest fearful foreboding to every 
one who has at heart, the highest welfare of our country. Eagerness 
in the pursuit of wealth and honor, is, from obvious causes, a striking 
trait of all democratic societies, and within certain limits, may be 
productive of much good, by stimulating talent and industry. But itis 
true of every agency, that in proportion to its power for good within the* 
proper bounds, will be its power for evil, if allowed to transcend them. 
Of the perils incident to that social condition, which throws open to all 
the paths to wealth and distinction, there is one form to which I wish to 
confine your attention, not only for the sake of simplicity, but on 
account of the portentous aspect, which it has assumed in this country. — 
The evil derives its enormous magnitude from causes connected with th« 
Executive department of the general government. 

Jn treating this subject, I will say nothirg which ought to offend * 



1£ 

liberal adherent of either of the political parties. I would not undertake 
to say which of them has had the larger share in bringing about the 
state of things to vyhich I allude. It has grown up from causes for 
which neither of them is exclusively responsible. It has been, in fact, 
by gradual and scarcely perceptible accretions, that party despotism has 
reached its present, or rather, I will say, its late unrivalled and intole- 
rable perfection, for there are just now, some signs of reaction, and 
reviving independence. 

Whenever one of the great parties has improved its tactics, or fallen 
upon some new means of preserving and strengthening its own organi- 
zation, the other, in self-defence, soon overtakes, and perhaps out- 
streps it, rendering necessary a further advance on, the part of the oppo- 
site faction. Thus they have marched, like the hosts of Wellington 
and Marmont, almost side by side, to those successive conflicts, upon 
each of which, have been staked almost all the honors and offices of 
the country. The few stragglers, thrown off into the neutral ground, 
or passing from one to the other, have been exposed to two fires, or 
quietly dropped behind. By this emulation, party organization has 
reached a perfection of tactics and discipline, which crushes individual- 
ity and freedom of opinion, almost as effectually as the tyranny of the 
Autocrat of all the Russias. The servility with which the dicta,of one or 
more leading men, when once recognized as symbols of faction, and 
even the stereotyped slang of party, are echoed and re-echoed all over 
the land, with scarely a variation of manly independence, by subalterns 
of the press and the rostrume, some of Whom, more unfortunate even 
than Ezau, have sold their birthright without any certainty of ever 
getting the mess of pottage, would be ridiculous if it were not deplora- 
ble. Wo be to him, who dares to enter his protest against the most 
flagrant injustice, or folly of his party, or its acknowledged leaders. It 
were better that a millstone were 1 hanged about his neck, and that he 
were cast into the depths of the sea, for if he do not make amends by 
speedy retraction and submission, he will be branded as a traitor, and 
almost exiled from the charities of civilized life. It has of late years 
come to this that, no man must raise his voice against the errors of his 
party, or against social abuses, in which any considerable body of men 
happen to be interested, for fear of injuring the prospects of that host 
of greedy aspirants, whose hopes of worldly advancement are invested 
in the political lottery. For my own part, as I have a God, a country 
that I love, and a soul to be saved, I do utterly defy, as I have heretofore 
done, this hydra-headed tyranny, at the risk of having my own prospect^ 
^lasted by his hissing breath and poisoned fang. 



IB 

i know very well that parties must exists in $very free coan.try, and 
within certain limits, are very useful, by watching and checking one 
another. Their leaders are the counsel on egch question of policy, 
and on the trial of public men before the popular tribunal. But it is 
plain, that the jury ought not to partake of the t;.ias and passions of the 
advocates. There ought to be a body of intelligent men sufficiently 
free from party prepossessions, to render a just verdict upon each 
distinct issue, on its own particular merits, as it comes up for their 
decision. 

The actual fact is, and the leaders know it very well, that, with all 
the professions on each side, of high regard for principle, sincere, no 
doubt, in many cases, millions of dollars, in the shape of salaries and 
perquisites of office, are staked upon the issue of each of our great 
political conflicts. Every foqr years the Presidency, with all its attend- 
ant patronage, is to be scrambled for in the arena of popular agitation. 
Scarcely is the incumbent warm in his seat, and his friends snugly 
installed in their places, when the defeated party begins to marshal its 
forces for another conflict. The vast and glittering spoil stimulates to 
the highest pitch, the selfish passions of human nature. If actual 
possession is a great advantage on one side, it must not be forgotten, 
that while there can be but one holder of each office at a time, among 
those in power, there may be a dozen seekers in the ranks of the 
opposition. 

As the time for the next canvass approaches, Congress becomes a 
focus of intrigues which are ramified throughout {he country, and the 
interests of the nation are almost forgotten, while the politicians are 
busy in thwarting or forwardipgthe views of prominent aspirants to the 
Presidency. A disproportionate amount of talent, diverted frp.m more 
productive pursuits, is enjisted in the warfare, ancj employed in, persuad- 
ing the people that the salvation of the country is staked upon the 
result of the contest. The popular mind is stirred into a, feverish 
excitement, which is more and rnore inflamed as the final struggle 
approaches. At length the parties hold their conventions, choose their 
leaders, marshal their forces for the decisive encounter, and enforce 
with greater vigor than ever, a discipline, more relentless than that o f 
a regular army- The vast spoil which will reward the victors, holds 
out temptations too strong for the virtue of needy or grasping politicians. 
Scruples are broken down, conscience is silenced, and fatal wounds 
inflicted upon the moral sensiblities. The voice of truth and justice 
c an scarcely be heard in the tempest of passion. The air is darkened 



14 

with missiles, not merely the polished shafts of wit and logic and 
eloquence, but sticks, and stones, and mud. The country is inundated 
with papers, full of wretched slang and scurrility, which pander to the 
lowest tastes, and to the blindesi prejudices. All these things, it is true, 
are symptoms of an intermittent fever, to which all free countries are 
more or less liable, but that the disease has of late risen to a fearful and 
dangerous height in this country, must be plain to all who have any 
skill in social pathology. 

A delerium of political agitation, with scarcely a lucid interval, is 
very unpropitious to the culture of the higher faculties, and incompati- 
ble with a due attention to those great interests of humanity, in com* 
parison with which, most of the objects of party strife sink into insig* 
nificance. There is a remarkable want of earnestness among our 
leading men upon subjects of the highest import. They soon learn to 
suppress their opinions, if they have any, in relation to such matters, 
and even to countenance error and social abuses, for the sake of the 
votes or influence of those who are interested in their perpetuation. — 
The amount of mental activity, expended upon the objects of political 
strife, is greatly out of proportion to their real importance. How 
diseased mus$ be that soul, which is languid or asleep, while poetry, 
philosophy and religion unfold the beautiful, mysterious and imperish- 
able realities of the Universe, but wakes up into a tempest of excite- 
ment about a tax of a few cents on cotton goods. There are thousands 
who turn away from the most glorious creations of art and genius, the 
most startling revelations of science, the most luminous exposition of* 
the laws and principles of the Divine government, to devour with 
eagerness the state commonplaces of every Congressional declaimer, 
who, to let Buncombe know that he is alive,must set up anew some man 
of straw that has already been knocked down and thrashed to pieces 
an hundred times, and forthwith proceed to demolish him, getting up 
as much thunder about it as if the exploit were miraculous. To per- 
petuate this delusion as to the comparative importance of the ordinary 
topics of party discussion, is obviously the interest of those who throng 
all the paths to political preferment, and by their efforts tojdraw or to 
fix attention upon themselves, and, those from whom they expect favors, 
keep^the public mind in a state of feverish excitement. Art, literature, 
religion, are almost stifled by the everlasting dust with which the 
political races fill the atmosphere. The smoke of one conflict has 
scarcely cleared away before another commences, and the sun of Eternal 
Truth must look dimly through the haze of a v&st battlefield in whicfy 



13 

the meanest passidns of human nature are exulting over prostrate foes,- 
and rioting in the spoils of victory. 

I am aware that the evils I have attempted to point out are, to some' 
extent, unavoidably incident to free institutions. That the young giant 
of Democracy, who has been fed upon the flesh of Kings and nobles, 
whose childish pranks in other climes have beenover turning thrones 
and setting the world on fire, should, in this country, whe rehe is a 
chartered libertine, be fond of kicking up a dust in his frequent "sprees," 
is not a matter of surprise. But it is no small thing to know which 
Way lies the evil tendency of society, that each of us may give our aid 
to strengthen the restraining or mitigating tendencies. When we find 
that any of the social forces has gained a perilous ascendency, it be- 
comes our duty to lend a helping hand to its prostrate antagonists. 

This brings us to the inquiry, what are the antagonists to the dan- 
gerous tendencies of democratic societies? What are the available 
means of restraining the fierce pursuit of wealth and distinction 
through the medium of political agitation? I answer, they are law, 
literature and religion. In the forum, the press, and the pulpit, we 
must find the means of raising and keeping up the tone of society, and 
holding in check, the tyranny of party, the greediness of demagogues, 
and the phrenzy of political excitement. 

I have a few words to say in regard to that profession, the members 
of which have had so large a share in making, as well as administering 
the laws of this country. I have often thought with pleasure upon the 
dignity and conservative influence of legal pursuits, when kept pure 
from the turbid agitations of party politics. Not that I desire to see 
the able and faithful champion of private rights excluded from public 
trusts. On the contrary I think that the forensic wreath may both give 
and receive lustre, by being entwined with the laurels of the statesman. 
What I regret is, that the legal profession is regarded rather as a mere 
path to political distinction, than, as in itself, a noble pursuit, worthy of 
all the energies of powerful and cultivated intellect. The lawyer who 
rushes prematurely from the temple of justice, into the dusty arena of 
party strife, instead of waiting patiently for the rewards of talent and 
assiduity, is in danger of making himself a mere politician, and of 
hever rising to the true dignity either of the jurist, or the statesman. — 
Yet the large share which lawyers have had and now have in our state 
and national legislation, is no doubt a fortunate circumstance. 

The spirit of positive law delights in precedent and conventional right, 
and sets more value upon the stability of a rule than its conformity with 



16 

abstract theory. It is tnerefore hostile to the political radicalism, which/ 
would place all the laws and institutions of our country at the mercy 
of every traiiscient gust ot popular excitement. The excesses of this 
school of politics among us have heretofore been corrected by the 
good sense and moderation of a people educated for freedom, but there 
is no knowing what mischief may be done by the constant inculcation 
of false and dangerous vie#s of society . The political philosophy of 
Mr. Jefferson has been pushed to extremes, wnich he would 
have been one of the first to deprecate. In the language of Burke, the 
extreme medicine of the state has bee'ri m'a'de its daily food. The 
ultimate and irresponsible sovereignty of the people, whicri' is nothing 
more nor less than the right of revolution, is dragged forth from the 
sanctuary, where it ought to be reverently approached', by earnest and" 
heroic men, only in solemn emergencies, and paraded before the puotic 
in siich connections, that it isin danger of losing, in" this country, as it 
has in Mexico,its majestic and terrible significance. Its suspension oinori 
user, to borrow a legal phrase, is implied by the very existence of a 
Constitution, one object of Which, if it be free, is to give effect in 
certain prescribed modes, and within certain limits, to the will of a con- 
ventional people defined by law, not comprising in any of our states 
more than one fourth, and usually not more than one seventh of the 
actual population. A free constitution excludes sovereignty altogether.. 
It is purely a practical matter, an adaptation of means to ends. It ought, 
upon the basis of prescription and by the lights of experience, to distrib- 
ute and organise the powers necessary for the well-being of society, iri' 
such a manner, that justice may be done to each and to all, that life 
and property, the freedom of speech and of the press, the rights of con- 
science, the safety and integrity 6f the state itself may have the most 
ample and permanent security," making allowances, of course, for the 
imperfections of all human institutions. While government fulfils 
these condiiions to a reasonable extent, every individual has a sacred* 
right to its protection and blessings, and no body of men have any 
right to overturn it, simply because it is their will and pleasure to show 
their physical power by pulling down a temple of constitutional liberty. 
As extremes meet, the old maxim, that the "king can do no wrong," 
has been applied to transient majorities, of free white males over twenty- 
one years o'f age, by men, whom the same feelings, which make them 
demagogues in a republic, would make courtiers in a monarchy. There 
is not, and I Hope there never will be in this country, any power capable 

of resisting die settled, and deliberate will of the people. But whil& 
B 



1-1 

popular opinion is the life-blood of every free government, we must not' 
forget that if the vessels be so relaxed as to yield too readily to an un- 
usual pressure of the vital current, it may derange or destroy the organ- 
isation which it is intended to preserve. There is a glorious and sub- 
lime sense in which it is true that the voice of the people is the voice of 
God. I refer to the great manifestations of that vital principle of an 
healthy society, which, like the vis medicatrix of the natural body, 
when invaded by the causes of disease, musters its force to expel the 
enemy, and remove the morbid condition; the mighty heavings of the 
great deep of popular mind breaking up through the crust of social 
abuses to terrify and regenerate the world; the ground-swell which un- 
disturbed by the transient agitations of the surface of society, year after 
year or age after age, moves steadily in one direction as if instinct with 
the spirit or Providence of the Almighty. 

This brings us to another great antagonist of the dangerous tenden- 
cies of democratic societies; the influence which may be exerted by the 
Press, as the vehicle of that higher order of literature, which not only 
sets to written music the hymn of Nature to her author, in all its varia- 
tions, but gives clear and melodious utterance to the voice of the people 
when it is the voice of God; catches the tones of moral music which 
have been left behind on the Dead Sea of the Past, by the tempests of 
war and the thunders of revolutions; shows the foot-prints of Providence 
on the sands of Time; and collects the sybil leaves, that have been 
scattered abroad even over the dreariest tracts of human experience, 
into a revelation of beautiful sublimes and eternal verities. It is an 
hopeful fact, that literature is now rrAich less infected, than it was du- 
ring and about the close of the last century, with scepticism and licen- 
tiousness. It is true, there is still by no means so much earnestness 
as might be desired among our men of letters, who are too apt to content 
themselves with skimming the surface of nature and society- Yet I 
think ffrere can be clearly discerned the dawn of a day of better things, 
when literature will no longer Weakly shrink from the most sublime, 
mysterious and significant facts of human experience, but fearlessly 
grapple with them in a loving and docile spirit; when the Deity will no 
longer be carefully excluded from the world whrch he has created and 
redeemed; when great emotions that grasp at infinity will no longer be 
sneered at, or guilty left out of the pictures of human life and human 
nature; when history will no longer be regarded as a barren record of 

crime, imposture and degeneracy; when the warm gush of living faith? 
3 



and earnestness and reverance will no longer be frozen in its very fount 
by the cold sophisms of an Epicurean philosophy. 

Look for example at the manner in which historical inquiries are now 
conducted not only in France and Germany, but to a less extent in 
England and the United States. So great has been the change in a few 
years in this respect, that historical philosophy may be regarded as a 
new science, destined to effect a glorious revolution in intellectual cul- 
ture. It tends, to emancipate the mind from the narrow prejudices of 
schools, and sects, and parties. It is a sort of moral chemistry which 
analyzes the great facts of human experience and discriminates what is 
universal and imperishable from what is merely local and transitory, 
recognizes moral wants and moral affinities, even in their obscurest 
manifestations, as legitimate subject-matter of inductive science, finds 
some grains of pure gold even in the basest alloys of error, prejudice 
and passion, and traces the manifestations of the Divine Idea — the vital 
principle of society — through all the forms of social organization in 
which it has resided. 

For the sake of illustration, I will call your attention to the most 
striking fact connected with the revolution which is taking place in the 
spirit and tendencies of literature. It is cheering to all who have at 
heart the highest welfare of their country and their race. A few years 
ago one might have been conversant with a wide range of history, phi- 
losophy and poetry, as well as fictitious and periodical literature, Without 
knowing, if he had not learned it from other sources, that such a thing 
as the christian religion existed or ever had existed on earth, except as 
a poor popular superstition, long since consigned to the same grave 
with witchcraft and alchemy. Even a natural religion was scarcely 
recognized. Creative wisdom was excluded from Nature, and Provi- 
dence from history. All that exalts our present existence and holds 
out the promise of another, was treated as mere delusion, useful perhaps 
3n the existing state of society, but destined to vanish before the in- 
creasing light of knowledge. This life was a tragic-comedy performed 
on a theatre gaily decorated by the senses, and man a poor player, "who 
strutted and fretted his little hour upon the stage," and then vanished, 
no one knew or cared whither. The world was a "ship of fools," with- 
out rudder or helmsman, lauched by chance upon an endless voyage 
through immensity. 

But now there are thinkers, not theologians, but men of letters, who, 
with the scientific decision of a Hume, ancl the cool sarcastic rea- 



If* 

son of a Voltaite, and with a logic far more profound and comprehensive 
than either of those writers ever dreamed of, are tracing through all its 
corruptions the vital power of Christianity, in organizing and civilizing 
modern society, and showing in the sacrifices and idolatries of the 
ancient world, those moral wants and primitive traditions which divinely 
pointed to that central cluster of illuminating facts, the life, death and 
triumphs of the Divine Deliverer. 

Literature ought ever to be the handmaid of Religion, which has 
close affinities with all exalted views of nature and history. The Press 
will perform its highest functions when men of letters, whether they 
put forth their thoughts in the fugitive form ot periodical effusions, or 
in a more permanent shape, shall have an ever-present sense of the 
dignity of their vocation, as a priesthood of the sublime, the beautiful, 
the Divine, auxiliary to the ministry of Everlasting Truth. 

We now come to the last in order, but the first in importance of the 
great conservative elements of progressive and democratic societies. 
Any remarks upon religion, considered as a system of doctrines, would 
be out of place on this occasion. Neither will I dwell upon its impor- 
tance, or its necessity as an element of social organization, I need not 
remind you that the lever with which this world is to be moved must 
have its fulcrum'in Eternity, that the fierce pursuit of worldly interests, 
which endangers our freedom and highest welfare, can be restrained 
only by motives drawn from another state of existence. I will con- 
tent myself with a hasty glance at a great problem of society, which 
may receive its solution on this continent; I mean the union of moral 
power with freedom of opinion. It seems to me that Catholic unity 
and Protestant individuality both contain fragments of truth and good, 
which, torn from their mechanical juxtaposition, by the earthquake of 
the reformation, have not yet by any of the sects been ce/nented into a 
foundation wide enough for such a structure as is demanded by the 
moral wants of society. Religion, I am persuaded, cannot attain in our 
country, the full measure of its efficiency for good, until it combines 
with the stimulating effects of superficial diversity, an imposing front 
of essential unity, and a power of concurring effort, which are yet to 
be evolved from the chaos of sects and schisms. But I will not detain 
you further upon this subject, lest I should seem to encroach upon the 
province of those to whose especial custody it is confided. 

As I remarked on a former occasion, we are evidently on the thresh* 
hold of a stirring, productive and critical period in human affairs, du- 



p#g which all who shall have any considerable share in controlling the 
destinies of this republic, will occupy positions of peculiar and tremen- 
dous responsibility. The seeds of social revolutions, which were sown 
broadcast over Europe by the tempests of the last century, after a long 
interval of sunshine, in which the light of knowledge has been con- 
stantly spreading from the mountain-tops of society into the depths of 
its humblest valleys, have suddenly sprung up into the promise of a 
glorious harvest; but whether it shall fully realize our hopes, or be 
blighted once more by the breath of the Destroyer, is a question to be 
decided by those who are about to enter upon the stage of active life. 
The peculiar character of its institutions places this republic in the van 
of the christian civilization. The nations are struggling towards that 
advanced post of social progress which has been raised aloft by the 
American Democracy. It will be our task to keep that landmark on 
high in view of mankind, encircled with a blaze of literary, scientific 
and moral glories. Each of us may help to fan into a still brighter 
flame this beacon-light of humanity, until, like the signal fire which an- 
nounced the return of Agamemnon from the Trojan war, it shall kindle 
responsive lights from shore to shore, from mountain top to mountain 
top, and even the distant isles of the sea shall catch the flying glory, 
and the world be wrapped in the glow of an illumination, over which 
the Intelligences ot Heaven may tune another and more glorious stanza 
of that celestial anthem, which celebrated the birthday of material 
light, when "the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God 
shouted for joy." 

Gentlemen of the Literary Societies of Centre College: What can 
I add to the force of the consideration which must suggest itself to you 
all, that you will shortly go forth from these academic shades, to take 
your places in bearing the ark of civil and religious freedom through the 
perils of an age, which will probably be more critical and productive, 
than any which has elapsed since the dawn of authentic history. Your 
alma mater stands high among the literary institutions, not only of the 
West, but of the Union, and as mueh has been given you, much will be 
required. You will be citizens, perhaps, in hign and responsible posi- 
tions, of this great republic, which is taking the lead in human affairs. 
I need not tell you that while you will be entrusted to a greater or less 
extent with the honor and freedom and prosperity of your own coun- 
try, and through them with the interests of society at large, you will 
glso be shaping your own temporal and eternal destinies. This is 



&iou f n<i upon whkxh I must tread lightly, for I am sensible that I have 
made myself ro title to urge upon you such high considerations. J may 
remark, however, that the essence of practical morality is, to do with 
our might the work for which $re are best fitted by natural gifts and 
education, in such a spirit, and with such aims that we may be con- 
stantly rising towards the height of moral and intellectual attainments, 
which we may be capable of reaching. One more thought in this con- 
nection, and most of you may never again hear my voice on a public 
occasion. 

You know, that, owing to the figure of the earth, in high latitudes of 
the North Atlantic, at a certain time of year, the eagle may soar through 
the mists and storms that darken the surface of that melancholly main, 
until he bathes his wing in a region of almost ijnceasing sunshine, for 
scarcely have the last hues of sunset faded in the West, when the East- 
ern horizon begins to glow with the rosy smile of Aurora, springing up 
joyfully from her ocean-slumber. Allow me in conclusion, to express 
the hope that the course of each of you may be not only onward, but 
upward, to that sphere of serene contemplation, in which the sitting ra- 
diance of a well-spent life, may (blend with the opening glories of 
pternjty. 



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